Classic American Crime Fiction of the 1920s

by Leslie S. Klinger

  Greene raised his hand. “Just a minute. I said you were bluffing, and I still think so. Any other assumption would be an insult to your intelligence. Surely you know enough about the law to understand that your brother’s refusal to tell me his business with Winterslip, added to the fact that he was presumably the last person to see Winterslip alive, is sufficient excuse for holding him. I can hold him on those grounds, I am holding him, and, my dear Captain, I shall continue to hold him until hell freezes over.”

  “Very good,” said Cope, rising. “I shall engage a capable lawyer—”

  “That is, of course, your privilege,” snapped Greene. “Good morning.”

  Cope hesitated. He turned to Egan. “It means more publicity, Jim,” he said. “Delay, too. More unhappiness for Carlota here. And since everything you did was done for her—”

  “How did you know that?” asked Egan quickly.

  “I’ve guessed it. I can put two and two together, Jim. Carlota was to return with me for a bit of schooling in England. You said you had the money, but you hadn’t. That was your pride again, Jim. It’s got you into a lifetime of trouble. You cast about for the funds, and you remembered Winterslip. I’m beginning to see it all now. You had something on Dan Winterslip, and you went to his house that night to—er—”

  “To blackmail him,” suggested Greene.

  “It wasn’t a pretty thing to do, Jim,” Cope went on. “But you weren’t doing it for yourself. Carlota and I know you would have died first. You did it for your girl, and we both forgive you.” He turned to Carlota. “Don’t we, my dear?”

  The girl’s eyes were wet. She rose and kissed her father. “Dear old dad,” she said.

  “Come on, Jim,” pleaded Captain Cope. “Forget your pride for once. Speak up, and we’ll take you home with us. I’m sure the prosecutor will keep the thing from the newspapers—”

  “We’ve promised him that a thousand times,” Greene said.

  Egan lifted his head. “I don’t care anything about the newspapers,” he explained. “It’s you, Arthur—you and Cary—I didn’t want you two to know. But since you’ve guessed, and Cary knows too—I may as well tell everything.”

  John Quincy stood up. “Mr. Egan,” he said. “I’ll leave the room, if you wish.”

  “Sit down, my boy,” Egan replied. “Cary’s told me of your kindness to her. Besides, you saw the check—”

  “What check was that?” cried Hallet. He leaped to his feet and stood over John Quincy.

  “I was honor bound not to tell,” explained the boy gently.

  “You don’t say so!” Hallet bellowed. “You’re a fine pair, you and that aunt of yours—”

  “One minute, Hallet,” cut in Greene. “Now, Egan, or Cope, or whatever your name happens to be—I’m waiting to hear from you.”

  Egan nodded. “Back in the ’eighties I was teller in a bank in Melbourne, Australia,” he said. “One day a young man came to my window—Williams or some such name he called himself. He had a green hide bag full of gold pieces—Mexican, Spanish and English coins, some of them crusted with dirt—and he wanted to exchange them for bank-notes. I made the exchange for him. He appeared several times with similar bags, and the transaction was repeated. I thought little of it at the time, though the fact that he tried to give me a large tip did rather rouse my suspicion.

  “A year later, when I had left the bank and gone to Sydney, I heard rumors of what Dan Winterslip had done on the Maid of Shiloh. It occurred to me that Williams and Winterslip were probably the same man. But no one seemed to be prosecuting the case, the general feeling was that it was blood money anyhow, that Tom Brade had not come by it honestly himself. So I said nothing.

  “Twelve years later I came to Hawaii, and Dan Winterslip was pointed out to me. He was Williams, right enough. And he knew me, too. But I’m not a blackmailer—I’ve been in some tight places, Arthur, but I’ve always played fair—so I let the matter drop. For more than twenty years nothing happened.

  “Then, a few months ago, my family located me at last, and Arthur here wrote me that he was coming to Honolulu and would look me up. I’d always felt that I’d not done the right thing by my girl—that she was not taking the place in the world to which she was entitled. I wanted her to visit my old mother and get a bit of English training. I wrote to Arthur and it was arranged. But I couldn’t let her go as a charity child—I couldn’t admit I’d failed and was unable to do anything for her—I said I’d pay her way. And I—I didn’t have a cent.

  “And then Brade came. It seemed providential. I might have sold my information to him, but when I talked with him I found he had very little money, and I felt that Winterslip would beat him in the end. No, Winterslip was my man—Winterslip with his rotten wealth. I don’t know just what happened—I was quite mad, I fancy—the world owed me that, I figured, just for my girl, not for me. I called Winterslip up and made an appointment for that Monday night.

  “But somehow—the standards of a lifetime—it’s difficult to change. The moment I had called him, I regretted it. I tried to slip out of it—I told myself there must be some other way—perhaps I could sell the Reef and Palm—anyhow, I called him again and said I wasn’t coming. But he insisted, and I went.

  “I didn’t have to tell him what I wanted. He knew. He had a check ready for me—a check for five thousand dollars. It was Cary’s happiness, her chance. I took it, and came away—but I was ashamed. I’m not trying to excuse my action; however, I don’t believe I would ever have cashed it. When Cary found it in my desk and brought it to me, I tore it up. That’s all.” He turned his tired eyes toward his daughter. “I did it for you, Cary, but I didn’t want you to know.” She went over and put her arm about his shoulder, and stood smiling down at him through her tears.

  “If you’d told us that in the first place,” said Greene, “you could have saved everybody a lot of trouble, yourself included.”

  Cope stood up. “Well, Mr. Prosecutor, there you are. You’re not going to hold him now?”

  Greene rose briskly. “No. I’ll arrange for his release at once.” He and Egan went out together, then Hallet and Cope. John Quincy held out his hand to Carlota Egan—for by that name he thought of her still.

  “I’m mighty glad for you,” he said.

  “You’ll come and see me soon?” she asked. “You’ll find a very different girl. More like the one you met on the Oakland ferry.”

  “She was very charming,” John Quincy replied. “But then, she was bound to be—she had your eyes.” He suddenly remembered Agatha Parker. “However, you’ve got your father now,” he added. “You won’t need me.”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “I wonder,” she said, and went out.

  John Quincy turned to Chan. “Well, that’s that,” he remarked. “Where are we now?”

  “Speaking personally for myself,” grinned Chan, “I am static in same place as usual. Never did have fondly feeling for Egan theory.”

  “But Hallet did,” John Quincy answered. “A black morning for him.”

  In the small anteroom they encountered the Captain of Detectives. He appeared disgruntled.

  “We were just remarking,” said John Quincy pleasantly, “that there goes your little old Egan theory. What have you left?”

  “Oh, I’ve got plenty,” growled Hallet.

  “Yes, you have. One by one your clues have gone up in smoke. The page from the guest book, the brooch, the torn newspaper, the ohia wood box, and now Egan and the Corsican cigarette.”

  “Oh, Egan isn’t out of it. We may not be able to hold him, but I’m not forgetting Mr. Egan.”

  “Nonsense,” smiled John Quincy. “I asked what you had left. A little button from a glove—useless. The glove was destroyed long ago. A wrist watch with an illuminated dial and a damaged numeral two—”

  Chan’s amber eyes narrowed. “Essential clue,” he murmured. “Remember how I said it.”

  Hallet banged his fist on a table. “That’s it—the wrist wat
ch! If the person who wore it knows any one saw it, it’s probably where we’ll never find it now. But we’ve kept it pretty dark—perhaps he doesn’t know. That’s our only chance.” He turned to Chan. “I’ve combed these islands once hunting that watch,” he cried, “now I’m going to start all over again. The jewelry stores, the pawn shops, every nook and corner. You go out, Charlie, and start the ball rolling.”

  Chan moved with alacrity despite his weight. “I will give it one powerful push,” he promised, and disappeared.

  “Well, good luck,” said John Ouincy, moving on.

  Hallet grunted. “You tell that aunt of yours I’m pretty sore,” he remarked. He was not in the mood for elegance of diction.

  John Quincy’s opportunity to deliver the message did not come at lunch, for Miss Minerva remained with Barbara in the city. After dinner that evening he led his aunt out to sit on the bench under the hau tree.

  “By the way,” he said, “Captain Hallet is very much annoyed with you.”

  “I’m very much annoyed with Captain Hallet,” she replied, “so that makes us even. What’s his particular grievance now?”

  “He believes you knew all the time the name of the man who dropped that Corsican cigarette.”

  She was silent for a moment. “Not all the time,” she said at length. “What has happened?”

  John Quincy sketched briefly the events of the morning at the police station. When he had finished he looked at her inquiringly.

  “In the first excitement I didn’t remember, or I should have spoken,” she explained. “It was several days before the thing came to me. I saw it clearly then—Arthur—Captain Cope—tossing that cigarette aside as we reentered the house. But I said nothing about it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I thought it would be a good test for the police. Let them discover it for themselves.”

  “That’s a pretty weak explanation,” remarked John Quincy severely. “You’ve been responsible for a lot of wasted time.”

  “It—it wasn’t my only reason,” said Miss Minerva softly.

  “Oh—I’m glad to hear that. Go on.”

  “Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to link up that call of Captain Cope’s with—a murder mystery.”

  Another silence. And suddenly—he was never dense—John Quincy understood.

  “He told me you were very beautiful in the ’eighties,” said the boy gently. “The captain, I mean. When I met him in that San Francisco club.”

  Miss Minerva laid her own hand on the boy’s. When she spoke her voice, which he had always thought firm and sharp, trembled a little. “On this beach in my girlhood,” she said, “happiness was within my grasp. I had only to reach out and take it. But somehow—Boston—Boston held me back. I let my happiness slip away.”

  “Not too late yet,” suggested John Quincy.

  She shook her head. “So he tried to tell me that Monday afternoon. But there was something in his tone—I may be in Hawaii, but I’m not quite mad. Youth, John Quincy, youth doesn’t return, whatever they may say out here.” She pressed his hand, and stood. “If your chance comes, dear boy,” she added, “don’t be such a fool.”

  She moved hastily away through the garden, and John Quincy looked after her with a new affection in his eyes.

  Presently he saw the yellow glare of a match beyond the wire. Amos again, still loitering under his algaroba tree. John Quincy rose and strolled over to him.

  “Hello, Cousin Amos,” he said. “When are you going to take down this fence?”

  “Oh, I’ll get round to it some time,” Amos answered. “By the way, I wanted to ask you. Any new developments?”

  “Several,” John Quincy told him. “But nothing that gets us anywhere. So far as I can see, the case has blown up completely.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking it over,” Amos said. “Maybe that would be the best outcome, after all. Suppose they do discover who did for Dan—it may only reveal a new scandal, worse than any of the others.”

  “I’ll take a chance on that,” replied John Quincy. “For my part, I intend to see this thing through—”

  Haku came briskly through the garden. “Cable message for Mr. John Quincy Winterslip. Boy say collect. Requests money.”

  John Quincy followed quickly to the front door. A bored small boy awaited him. He paid the sum due and tore open the cable. It was signed by the postmaster at Des Moines, and it read:

  “No one named Saladine ever heard of here.”

  John Quincy dashed to the telephone. Some one on duty at the station informed him that Chan had gone home, and gave him an address on Punchbowl Hill. He got out the roadster, and in five minutes more was speeding toward the city.

  CHAPTER XIX

  “Good-by, Pete!”

  Charlie Chan lived in a bungalow that clung precariously to the side of Punchbowl Hill. Pausing a moment at the Chinaman’s gate, John Quincy looked down on Honolulu, one great gorgeous garden set in an amphitheater of mountains. A beautiful picture, but he had no time for beauty now. He hurried up the brief walk that lay in the shadow of the palm trees.

  A Chinese woman—a servant, she seemed—ushered him into Chan’s dimly-lighted living-room. The detective was seated at a table playing chess; he rose with dignity when he saw his visitor. In this, his hour of ease, he wore a long loose robe of dark purple silk, which fitted closely at the neck and had wide sleeves. Beneath it showed wide trousers of the same material, and on his feet were shoes of silk, with thick felt soles. He was all Oriental now, suave and ingratiating but remote, and for the first time John Quincy was really conscious of the great gulf across which he and Chan shook hands.

  “You do my lowly house immense honor,” Charlie said. “This proud moment are made still more proud by opportunity to introduce my eldest son.” He motioned for his opponent at chess to step forward, a slim sallow boy with amber eyes—Chan himself before he put on weight. “Mr. John Quincy Winterslip, of Boston, kindly condescend to notice Henry Chan. When you appear I am giving him lesson at chess so he may play in such manner as not to tarnish honored name.”

  The boy bowed low; evidently he was one member of the younger generation who had a deep respect for his elders. John Quincy also bowed. “Your father is my very good friend,” he said. “And from now on, you are too.”

  Chan beamed with pleasure. “Condescend to sit on this atrocious chair. Is it possible you bring news?”

  “It certainly is,” smiled John Quincy. He handed over the message from the postmaster at Des Moines.

  “Most interesting,” said Chan. “Do I hear impressive chug of rich automobile engine in street?”

  “Yes, I came in the car,” John Quincy replied.

  “Good. We will hasten at once to home of Captain Hallet, not far away. I beg of you to pardon my disappearance while I don more appropriate costume.”

  Left alone with the boy, John Quincy sought a topic of conversation. “Play baseball?” he asked.

  The boy’s eyes glowed. “Not very good, but I hope to improve. My cousin Willie Chan is great expert at that game. He has promised to teach me.”

  John Quincy glanced about the room. On the back wall hung a scroll with felicitations, the gift of some friend of the family at New Year’s.113 Opposite him, on another wall, was a single picture, painted on silk, representing a bird on an apple bough. Charmed by its simplicity, he went over to examine it. “That’s beautiful,” he said.

  “Quoting old Chinese saying, a picture is a voiceless poem,” replied the boy.

  Beneath the picture stood a square table, flanked by straight, low-backed armchairs. On other elaborately carved teakwood stands distributed about the room were blue and white vases, porcelain wine jars, dwarfed trees. Pale golden lanterns hung from the ceiling; a soft-toned rug lay on the floor. John Quincy felt again the gulf between himself and Charlie Chan.

  But when the detective returned, he wore the conventional garb of Los Angeles or Detroit, and the gulf did not seem so wide. They we
nt out together and entering the roadster, drove to Hallet’s house on Iolani Avenue.

  The captain lolled in pajamas on his lanai. He greeted his callers with interest.

  “You boys are out late,” he said. “Something doing?”

  “Certainly is,” replied John Quincy, taking a proffered chair. “There’s a man named Saladine—”

  At mention of the name, Hallet looked at him keenly. John Quincy went on to tell what he knew of Saladine, his alleged place of residence, his business, the tragedy of the lost teeth.

  “Some time ago we got on to the fact that every time Kaohla figured in the investigation, Saladine was interested. He managed to be at the desk of the Reef and Palm the day Kaohla inquired for Brade. On the night Kaohla was questioned by your men, Miss Egan saw Mr. Saladine crouching outside the window. So Charlie and I thought it a good scheme to send a cable of inquiry to the postmaster at Des Moines, where Saladine claimed to be in the wholesale grocery business.” He handed an envelope to Hallet. “That answer arrived to-night,” he added.

  An odd smile had appeared on Hallet’s usually solemn face. He took the cable and read it, then slowly tore it into bits.

  “Forget it, boys,” he said calmly.

  “Wha—what!” gasped John Quincy.

  “I said forget it. I like your enterprise, but you’re on the wrong trail there.”

  John Quincy was greatly annoyed. “I demand an explanation,” he cried.

  “I can’t give it to you,” Hallet answered. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  “I’ve taken your word for a good many things,” said John Quincy hotly. “This begins to look rather suspicious to me. Are you trying to shield somebody?”

  Hallet rose and laid his hand on John Quincy’s shoulder. “I’ve had a hard day,” he remarked, “and I’m not going to get angry with you. I’m not trying to shield anybody. I’m as anxious as you are to discover who killed Dan Winterslip. More anxious, perhaps.”